Love, Mom
by Jen
Summary: Rentfic. A little POV from a minor character. Written a while back.


I haven't written a Rent fic in a very long time, but as I was cleaning out my hard drive I found some stuff I'd written and never posted.  This little story is on of them.  Perhaps it will inspire me.  

Original Notes:

I was listening to one of my bootlegs and this popped into my head after listening to VM #3.  Random, sure, but most of my writing is coming this way – in spurts at unusual times.  ::shrugs::

Love, Mom

_" .__ . . love, Mom."_

No one picks up.  I should be used to talking to an answering machine by now, but I'm still not.  Cheerfully jabber into it, in a way only a mother can, and hope each time that he'll pick up.  Yet, each time, you hang up, and for the millionth time wonder if he's okay.  If he's happy.  

Yes, Mark picks up the phone on those rare occasions in which he is expecting anyone but me.  When he was dating Maureen, she would pick up and fill me in on my son's life, while he scowled in the background.  Talking to your mother isn't important anymore.  

It's depressing for a mother, really.  You do the best you can to raise a child, and he doesn't even want to talk to you.  He rarely ever comes home.

I tried the best to accommodate both my children.  Cindy was easy; girls are easy to deal with.  Mothers can relate to them, and even though screaming arguments often come into play, you can always return to common ground.  Daughters hate to hear advice from their mothers – who wants to remember the fact that their mother was once that young, too?   

Mark was different.  Andrew and I were separated when he born.  Another long fight, a break-up, reconciliation, then another break-up.  Mark was conceived in between.  I'll admit - he wasn't welcomed into a perfect loving environment.  Most of his early years, Andrew and I yelled, until we finally divorced when Mark was seven.  

He was upset.  Andrew hadn't exactly been loving toward Mark; in fact, it was opposite.  Completely overlooked him.  At once point, denied he was his.  That was the last straw.  I didn't sleep around.  I don't sleep around.  He was out the door.  Mark was left without a father.   

Sure, when he'd pick up Cindy, he'd take Mark as well, but I saw the look in his eyes when he came back.  Cindy was always smiles, babbling on about what she and dad did, but Mark, he never said a word.  

It really broke my heart.  

I tried.  I did.  I tried to pay more attention to him, but he shrugged me off.  Yes, I'm overbearing, but he was suffering.  He's my son.   

The only time I ever saw him truly happy was when he had a camera in his hand.  My brother gave him a 35 mm camera for his twelfth birthday.  Mark had looked at it, and smiled.  He took some wonderful pictures, before he moved on to moving film in high school.  He had talent.  

I don't know if I ever told him.  I tried, but I don't think he took it for anything.  Parents have to say nice things about their children.  We don't think any other way.  I don't think his father ever looked at one of Mark's pictures.  

Mark spent most of his childhood trying to impress Andrew.   Even went to Brown, Andrew's alma mater.  Not a flicker of recognition.  

I guess then I shouldn't have been surprised when he called and told me he was dropping out of college.  Correction – had already dropped out.  He called me from a pay phone in New York City.  

I've only seen him twice since then.  The first time he looked content, had a girlfriend, and talked about how great New York City was.   Put up with Cindy, refused to see his father, and even played around with his niece and nephew.  

The second time he looked tired, withdrawn.  He was alone and it was early November.  Too early for Thanksgiving. He rang the doorbell of the house – I still to this day do not why he couldn't just walk in the door – and stood there, as if he wasn't sure what to do.  "Hi, Mom," was whispered.  I was overjoyed just to see him, hugged him tighter then I ever had, taking in everything I'd missed in less than five seconds.

He was thin.  Way to thin for my liking.  And shivering.  The camera he owned wasn't anywhere in sight.  He let me lead him to the kitchen table and I took his coat.  I noticed that even though the heat was on full blast in the house he still shivered occasionally.  I put food in front of him.  He ate very little, pushed it around mostly.  He answered some direct questions of mine, usually with a simple soft, "fine, Mom."

He wasn't fine.  

I tried to fuss over him.  He felt a little warm to me, like perhaps he was coming down with something, but he shrugged me off, much like he usually did.  He wandered up to his old room and I was left with more questions than answers.  

That night, I peered in his door and watched him sleep.  He looked exhausted and far from rested, even in sleep.  

I'm a mother.  I worry.  

I sighed and he turned toward me, his eyes at half-mast.  It hit me then.  I didn't know my own son.  I walked over to him and sat on the edge of the bed and started to stroke his hair, an action I did whenever he came home from his father's.  This time he didn't back away.  He looked up at me and together we had an unspoken conversation.  

Maybe I don't know my son.  But I love him.  And even though he doesn't pick up the phone, doesn't write, he loves me.   

He left the next morning, leaving me a scribbled note on the kitchen counter saying he went back to the city.  

That was almost two months ago.   It's nearing the holidays.  Once again I'll pick up the phone, dial and the cycle will start all over again.  

_"Mark, are you there? I  . . ."_

It has to.  He's my son.


End file.
